The first notable thing you see when you drive up the farm's driveway is the large old house looming at the top of the hill.

The story that shrouds the house is mysterious and full of strange secrets. You are going to be intrigued! The story told to me is bizarre, and the unknown that envelops the house, is going to leave you walking away wanting to know more. Join me while I tell you the story behind... "House on the Hill".

I was on a two week adventure, seeking out old pioneer cemeteries throughout the rolling hills of Oregon's wheat-belt region when I, in-a-sense, stumbled upon one of the largest abandoned homes I have ever encountered in Oregon.

The directions I was given to get to the cemetery was to turn right onto the first dirt road when the road pavement ended and gravel began. Seemed simple enough. So when the pavement of the road I was on turned to gravel, I turned right. The road to the right ended up being a driveway that lead to a homestead belonging to a family that are active wheat farmers. I saw no cemetery.

Old abandoned building have always intrigued me, especially when being a photographer, and from first glance, this house I have not seen photographed by any other photo enthusiast. I wanted to know more. Kirky called her husband out, and for the next hour or so, Jesse and I stood outside in the 85 degree evening heat, chatting the evening away sharing stories of adventures, my cemetery trip, wheat farming, and of course...the old house on the hill. By this time, darken covered the land and house on the hill could no longer be seen. What happens next became one of the highlights to my adventures visiting this region of Oregon.

The porch light sensor came on when I approached the house to ask for directions to the cemetery. I was greeted with a smile from a lovely lady named Kirky. After a few minutes of chatting with her explaining my cemetery trip, Kirky gave me correct directions to the cemetery. But, before leaving, I had to ask about the mysterious old house that loomed on the hill in the distance. How old was it? Who lived in it?

Once ready for bed, I turned out the lights. That's when darkness really revealed itself as it blanketed across the land. It was dark! A slight wind from the north moved across the wheat, rattling it ever so slightly. I knew the wheat was there, but I couldn't see it. Even though it was still a good 70 degrees out, sitting there in the blackness, in the silence, shivers raced down spine. My attention went straight to the house. I couldn't see it any more. Here I am camping out in a wheat field at the base of a large abandoned, dilapidated house. One's imagination can really get out of control at this point, if you let it.

Dusk eventually covered the land and the house on the hill could barely be seen. I wouldn't be moving on to visit the nearby cemetery. I will have to wait for morning. Jesse could tell I had a huge interest in the house, and so he offered the chance for me to camp the night out in the field near the house. How exciting!

It was hard to sleep knowing I was so close to the house on the hill, and the only reason I was there camping in the field was to wait out the night for the morning so I could photograph it.

Much like having to wait for water to boil, the night seemed to pass ever so slowly. I started hearing things, things like the sound of footsteps moving slowly through the stubble section of a recently cut wheat field. I got up several times to turn on the headlights of my car to break the darkness and to illuminate the house to make sure it was still there...or better yet, to make sure nothing or no one from the house was coming out to visit me. Yes, I was getting spooked. It was easy to get spooked!

But, like I said, the imagination can really get the best of you. The slow moving footsteps ended up being from a couple of mule deer cautiously crossing the field between the house and my camp. I had a good reason to feel spooked, for I was told shadows of a human form and a dim light have been observed in the second floor window of the house on more than one occasion. Morning could not come sooner!

The large wooded support beams indicates the wood came from afar. There were 5 bedrooms, a sitting room, a large kitchen, two large pantries, a basement, and a parlor. The sitting room had elegant red leather furniture imported from France.

Build either in the late 1800's or early 1900's, rumor has it, the sole purpose of building the house was to "out-do-the-Jone's." No expense was spared in its construction or furnishings.

(image is not from the house. The photograph was taken at the Homestead Museum in Fort Rock Oregon)

Expensive counters, sinks and an elegant porcelain trimmed wood stove filled the kitchen.Small potbelly wood stoves were throughout the house.The doors were hand carved with wonderful stained glass windows.Most of the windows were stained glass and/or had decorative insets around the outside of the window.

The banister going up the stairs were made from deep red colored wood, and beautifully carved.The walls were trimmed tip and bottom with the same wood.Decorative square pieces were placed at each corner. Carved wooden pillars welcomed guest on the porches.

One of the upstairs rooms had a sewing mannequin in it indicating the woman of the house most likely designed and made her own dresses and clothing for her family as well as designed for others.

She was a small standing woman, only 4'11". But don't be fooled by her small stature. It appears she was a tough one, for her husband did everything he could to appease her by building everything in the house to fit her small size. Yet having such an immaculate custom built home, to be better than the "Jone's", she hated everything about the house.

(image is not from the house. The photograph was taken at the Homestead Museum in Fort Rock Oregon)

One can only speculate what possessed the family to do what happened next...

(image is not from the house. The photograph was taken at the Homestead Museum in Fort Rock Oregon)

In less than a year of living in the house, the 4'11" woman "had-it-up-to-here" and was fed up. One afternoon she quickly gathered up the family and walked out in a hurry, and in a strange twist to the story...they never came back. Even stranger, they left everything behind. What was it about the house that made them flee and never return? It was built in a perfect location next to an active year-round spring. The house would have been every pioneer's family dream house. Why did they leave? I wanted to know more!

The Family moved to a small town on the Columbia River and lived above the town where they continued to farmed the land there. Before the region became the Wheat-Belt, much of this part of Oregon was overran with sheep farming.

Shaniko Oregon was a railroad terminus established in 1900, and quickly earned the title of the largest inland wool shipping center in the world by 1903. Sheep were very much woven into the lifestyle of this turn of the century family, and based on the "no-expense-spared" mentality with the construction of such an elaborate house, they made a lot of money from wool farming. Journals were found in the house about their sheep, counting lambs, ewes, and rams that supports this financial theory.

(image is not from the house. The photograph was taken at the Homestead Museum in Fort Rock Oregon

For decades, the House on the Hill remained empty of human life, but full of furniture.

(image is not from the house. The photograph was taken at the Homestead Museum in Fort Rock Oregon

(image is not from the house. The photograph was taken at the Homestead Museum in Fort Rock Oregon)

(image is not from the house. The photograph was taken at the Homestead Museum in Fort Rock Oregon)

Kirky, who now owns the house, recalls some of her childhood memories about the House on the Hill.

"My brother and I would explore in the house but we were never in there for long.We always were a bit creeped out by it.It sits up on the hill, with a lone dead tree.That is sort of spooky thing for a kid.When we did go, we would look through everything. They left a lot of stuff behind.They also must have had children.The room in the back of the house on the bottom floor had twotwin beds and an old wooden toy box.We use to play with the toys up there and I can only take a couple to our house. I wanted to know what they were.We use to imagine living there and wondering what it was like."

(image is not from the house. The photograph was taken at the Homestead Museum in Fort Rock Oregon)

"The house did not have electricity so we only played in the house during the day. Several times we were scared and felt like there were ghosts in the house.Of course with the windows missing, the doors, curtains, and other things would flap, rattle, or move with the wind.One time we went upstairs, after being told not to because it was not safe, and the door to the right of the stairs started to slowly open. We caught sight of someone. We screamed and ran down the stairs and out of the house. Once our bravery returned, we proceeded back up into the master bedroom to discovered that the 'someone' we thought we saw was just the dressed mannequin.We use to sneak our friends up there to scare them with the mannequin.We thought it was so funny."

The house remained eerily quiet and undisturbed for decades. As Children, Kirky and her brother had the largest doll house ever to play in, and the house became very much a part of their childhood memories and upbringing. "The house was always there on the hill next to that dead tree," Kirky remarked.

For years, nothing had changed until the day came in the 80's when anything of antique quality became the Vogue, and the price people would pay for an antique skyrocketed. "That is when the looting and vandalism began." said Kirky's mother. Unfortunately, the house on the hill became an easy target.

Once word got out that a fully furnished abandoned home ripe for the picking was near, looter's came and took everything that wasn't nailed down. Once all of that was gone, looter's returned for the windows. They hacked off the doors and ripped out the wooden bannister. Looter's took the wood panels off the walls. They tore out the chimney bricks and even the pillars out front that once greeted guest to the porch.

One day Kirky's father caught two elderly ladies carrying off the velvet seating couch. There are no road to the house so they had to have accessed the property from the south side of the ranch.

Others came for the pure idiotic joy and recklessness of wanting to vandalize something that wasn't theirs to destroy. ﻿﻿﻿

Kirky recently learned something from her mother and shared with me. Her mother said the pillars that were stolen from the house, the one's that held up the balcony, were taken by the same two older women that Kirkiy's father caught stealing the velvet couch. The two older women were eventually caught. In their possession were antiques from all over the county and nearby counties. Fortunately, their looting days came to an end, but not before the pillars were sold to the past owner of the Cousins Restaurant in The Dalles.Unfortunately, the pillars were cut in half and are actually the ones currently on the mural wall in the waiting area.

(artist rendition of what is being seen from the house)

Kirky shared, "My kids and their friends swear they see an image walking by the window at night.It is the window of what we called the master bedroom.They also say one of the windows have a light coming from it.Needless to say they do not do any night coyote hunting near the old house."

Today, the House on the Hill is on private property with no road access out to it. Though I was able to visit the family and old house, I did so by gaining proper permission from them. The house can easily be seen from the main public road, and the photo above is the view you get of the house from the cemetery, which is also on a public access road.

Please respect the owners request and do not trespass onto their property to get closer to the house.Little did I know that while out in search of an old abandoned pioneer cemetery, I would stumble upon a piece of unique pioneer history relatively unknown to the general public. That mistake of turning up the wrong driveway was a mistake worth making.

A special thanks to Jess and Kirky for letting me invade their space, camp in the field, take pics of the old house, and gain interesting and unique information and history about the House on the Hill.